If you want to be successful, many experts and life-hackers say you should wake up at 6 am, take a cold shower, exercise, meditate, journal and brainstorm, review and set goals, read news and industry sites, consume inspiring content, eat a protein-rich breakfast

Whew. That’s a lot to accomplish before 8 am.

I’m not sure when the dogma of morning routines began to spread, but suddenly, these mile-long checklists are everywhere?—?especially in the startup world.

Routines can be great, but I think there’s a misplaced emphasis on morning.

Everyone has different peak hours. If you want to enhance your productivity, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a morning person or a night owl, or if you go for a run at 6 am or 6 pm.

Among other things, contemporary marketing is based on being able to react to users fast and precisely. For that, WebEngage provides plenty of tools that allow you to notify users on different channels, like email, the web, as well as in-app messages, encouraging them to interact with you. Thanks to the new “Journey Designer”, you can now comfortably develop sophisticated online marketing strategies using a graphical interface.

Find the Perfect Marketing Strategy Via Drag and Drop

WebEngage offers your website’s users ways to communicate directly with you. This works conventionally via feedback form, but also thanks to lots of online marketing tools. For example, you’ll know who of your shop’s visitors moved a product into the shopping cart, but didn’t buy it.

Creating a “Journey” Via Drag and Drop

The WebEngage tools let you try to convince these users to purchase the product by sending them a web-message or push notification. The new “Journey Designer” makes it significantly easier to develop a marketing strategy based on defined criteria. That’s because it quickly lets you create so-called “triggers”, meaning rules that you want to react to, followed by the according actions via drag and drop.

Reacting to Events or Segments

A “trigger” could be something like an event. Such an event can be defined on your website using the WebEngage API. Like previously mentioned, an action could be adding a product to a shopping cart. But there are tons of other events as well. Via JavaScript, you have access to the WebEngage API, letting you define any event that you want to react to later on.

As WebEngage sets up profiles for all users, it is very easy to trace back when a user has visited your website, and what he did back then. Thus, instead of reacting to a particular event, it is also possible to respond to so-called segments.

Segments: Filtering Users According to Different Factors

A segment allows you to define a particular target group, like e.g. users from a certain country, new or returning visitors. Instead of creating a segment, you can also address individual users. As you can see, there are a bunch of options when it comes to determining a trigger for an action.

Defining Actions and Addressing User Behavior

Once you’ve placed a trigger onto your working space, the next step is to add an action that you want to execute. Then, link the trigger to that action. This is done by visually drawing lines from the trigger to the action.

Creating Web Messages From Many Templates

The actions are the actual measures that you get to execute within the scope of a marketing strategy. Sending web messages would be such an action. Additionally, you think of things such as banners that are displayed on your website, or sticky headers, and sticky footers, meaning custom areas that are attached at the top or bottom of the page.

In-App Messages for Android and iOS Devices Are Possible as Well

WebEngage provides a broad range of web messages. Design, content, and target URLs are customized by you. However, the marketing journey doesn’t have to stop with the execution of an action. For each action, a follow-up action can be defined, depending on how a user reacted to the previous action.

Thus, you get to work down a diverse array of actions, depending on whether a web message was seen, or whether it was opened or closed. According to the reaction, you can chain multiple different actions, like sending an email or push notification.

While doing so, you combine actions for the website with actions for the smartphone, which are only executed within an app. You also get to communicate with your users via email or SMS.

Conditions and “Flow Control” for Complex Strategies

To allow for even more precise reactions, the “Journey Designer” offers different conditions. Depending on whether a condition was met or not, define two different paths that are executed.

Conditions Allow for the Reaction to Different Behavior

For instance, there is a condition that lets you check if a user has triggered an event or not. Use the “Journey Designer” to set up two unique chains of actions for both cases.

Of course, it is also possible to define very complex chains. Even reaching one action in different ways is doable. An action can consist of multiple connections of triggers, conditions, and other actions.

Waiting Until the Next Action is Executed Via “Flow Control.”

Last but not least, find the so-called “Flow Controls.” These allow you to make the continuation of a chain of actions dependant on the occurrence of certain factors. For example, you could make the execution of an action dependant on how much time passed since the last action. This could be hours, days, or even years.

Making an action dependant on triggering an event in a specific timeframe works just as well.

Evaluation and Statistics

Once you’ve set up your journey, all you need to do is publish it. From that point on, it is not possible to make any more changes. To do that, you need to stop your journey first.

During publication, the “Journey Designer” shows you how often triggers occur for a visitor of your website, and how often which actions are conducted. This gives you a really clear and up-to-date statistic on how your journey develops.

Published “Journey” With Statistics

Additionally, you get to download reports that you define yourself in CSV format. These contain all statistics that the “Journey Designer” can provide you with.

This statistic makes it very easy to get an overview of your marketing strategy’s success, and to potentially refine single actions.

Conclusion

The “Journey Designer” by WebEngage is a powerful marketing tool that lets you develop strategies for your online marketing ranging from simple to complex. The clear and intuitive interface offers you a smooth and easy start. The “Journey Designer” combines the many options of WebEngage in one central switch point that is easy to learn for newcomers, and always clear, even when it is used to handle complex strategies.

I started out as a designer. At one point in time, I was forced to start developing. Now, it’s time for a reset.

We Didn’t Have Anything

This goes back to the nineties. Netobjects Fusion was the most widespread design tool, with Microsoft’s Frontpage as a close second. Fusion was made for designers. There was no encounter with the source text of a website, and it wasn’t even possible. The same applied to Frontpage. This resulted in pretty pages, but horrible source code.

Later on, Macromedia’s Dreamweaver, and Adobe’s GoLive joined the group, and even surpassed Fusion and Frontpage. In terms of WYSIWYG, the newcomers were superior, and in terms of code quality too. It only made sense that designers were not sad to see the pioneers of design tools leave. However, the damage had already been done.

What Could Have Been if Things Had Gone Differently

Do you write Postscript manually? No? Why not? Right, you don’t need to. Manually writing HTML would not have become necessary either, had the early tools been able to provide a proper realization of the standards, or at least established that this didn’t matter at all. Look at Word and its topsy-turvy code, that works.

Better solutions would’ve been helpful. pucho / Pixabay

Now, did the mediocre quality of early HTML design tools force all of us onto the developer track? This might seem a little over the top. At the very least, the guys from Netobjects or Microsoft won’t be the only ones to blame. However, it’s a fact that we’ve been forced to manually write code from the very beginning, which is something that print design tools never have and would never have asked from us.

Thus, we ended up dealing with unattractive code blocks, rather than appealing designs. Soon enough, this became standard. Ever since then, the code-based working has been picking up pace almost dramatically. No day passes without three dozens of brand-new, naturally awesome frameworks, boilerplates, libraries, and other tools.

Design is Only a Partial Aspect of Our Work

Design in itself has been moved to the background. The developer tasks dominate. Some may like it, but not all do. When looking at my order book, the requests of my typical client have barely changed in the past two years. However, the technological options have changed drastically. This barely matters to the average client, though, as their business goals are the same that people had twenty/thirty years ago. You can open any business studies book of the Eighties and just start reading anywhere.

That’s not beautiful… (Pexels / Pixabay)

The brand-new features that you can only make use of as a developer are not useless, of course. However, they only affect a rather small share of potential customers and are heavily overrepresented in terms of their visibility, and the buzz that is created around them.

Back to the Roots

I’m done. Instead of evaluating new tools just to realize that, after a pointless training period, I can accomplish the same thing that I accomplished before, I will now exit this rat race. I don’t want to develop a Facebook clone, and no client will ever ask me to do so.

I enjoy working on designs, not fiddling around with code. I’ve gotten angry about a missing semicolon, or a superfluous underscore countless times, once I finally found them. This has to stop.

And while we’re at it. I don’t want to be a webmaster either. In the Nineties, I’ve put days of work because the mail server of client XYZ didn’t work, or appeared on some block list. Today, doing this is much clearer, and easier, thanks to proper backends. But that doesn’t make it a fun activity.

So, if I don’t want to webmaster, and don’t want to develop, which tool is the one for me? Naturally, the first thing that comes to mind is the homepage builders of the new generation. Dreamweaver and co don’t take care of the webmaster tasks, although they go pretty far in terms of cloud storage support, and management of modules, and other reusable elements.

Hello Wix

For Noupe, I’ve already looked into homepage builders several times, and I’ve also covered the topic for t3n, including the creation of a large market overview. I think I’m able to claim that I can make qualified decisions for, or against certain products.

Looking at it from this perspective, two website builders remained, namely Wix and Webydo. You’ll find awholebunch of articles covering both of them here at Noupe. My colleague Robert Mening also created a complete website using Wix, and gave a detailed report on it.

While Webydo seems to provide the more complete package, even including billing and white labeling, Wix established the bigger business.

Why does that matter? I don’t want to act as if I was putting my entire occupational future in the hands of the system that I choose. However, it would definitely be – say – annoying should my provider end up shutting down at a moment’s notice. So, assessing how likely the worst case is, is the right thing to do in advance.

Here, I, personally, think the market leader Wix is the safest bet. German competitors have been through tough times already, so all of them are out of question for me. Webydo does offer a good product, but it appears to be moving towards some sort of final battle with Wix. In the end, one of the two will be victorious, and I feel like it will be Wix.

In terms of the feature set, the two providers are very similar, and that also applies to the learning curve and the controls. In case of doubt, it would even be possible to quickly switch between the two. This idea reinforced my decision.

By clearly focusing on Wix-based websites, I won’t lose one single customer. I can tell you that much already. The clients never cared for the technological foundation I got their designs running on. And I’ve only developed web services, mostly communities, two or three times in the past; the last time was 15 years ago.

Psychologically, this decision is immensely easing to me. Once you’ve realized that your business doesn’t need to run at the cutting edge of the latest technologies, a lot of weight falls off.

Of course, I’ll keep staying up to date regarding new developments, but there won’t be a lot of experiments anymore. I won’t write any more code, either. From today on, I’ll only design. Just like I used to in days gone by.

The young web app Ludus brings back the fun to presentation design, and the fun of consuming it. Not only designers should definitely take a closer look at the tool.

Powerpoint is Close to 40 Years in Business; Time for Retirement

You get yawny as soon as you hear the word “presentation”? If that’s the case, you’re one of the people that have been working here for a while. Those who have been working since the nineties know what I’m talking about. Since the beginning of the nineties, everything was presented exclusively using Powerpoint. It didn’t even matter if the topic benefited from a supporting presentation. Whatever! It was possible, so we did it. Every good and every lousy orator used the dinosaur from Redmond, to support their more or less shaky theses with a mostly awful design.

Until today, Powerpoint has only evolved very slightly, and it has become the replacement for the overhead projector of the eighties. However, not only have the expectations regarding modern presentations increased drastically; the technological options have evolved as well. By now, we even have alternatives, like Apple’s Keynote. But none of the desktop giants make appropriate use of the new technological possibilities.

Ludus Reinvents the Presentation

Thus, it makes sense to consider a web-based alternative to the aging incumbents. The makers of Ludus didn’t stop there, though, and came out with a solution that sums up what modern presentation solutions are capable of.

The interface will seem familiar to designers. (Screenshot: Noupe)

Ludus not only removes the conventional problems of each desktop presentation software, like difficulties when sharing the massive files, or the usage of different computers among the recipients of the presentation. Above of all else, Ludus brings flexibility to the table, which can not be achieved by locally created proprietary files.

Ludus is already able to integrate existing web content into the presentation via drag & drop or copy & paste. This allows users to combine forms with YouTube videos, or implement animated Gifs from GIPHY. Everything you can find on Google can be used in Ludus. This is a bit simplified but true at the core. After all, the Ludus team thinks of the web as a pile of Lego bricks, which can be turned into something pretty with Ludus.

With that in mind, it is also very fitting that you get to use Ludus on every device – for both creation and presentation.

Web App in the Best Sense (Illustration: Ludus)

Ludus is Open to Any Content

Ludus integrates images from Dropbox, Flickr, GIPHY, Instagram and Unsplash, fonts from Google Fonts, Typekit, or your computer, pictograms from Icons8 and The Noun Project, as well as videos from Youtube, Vimeo, Streamable, Wistia and Vid.me. It is also possible to implement your content from InVision, Framer, and SketchFab. Even 3D models and VR experiments can be used in your Ludus presentation.

Ludus is an open system. (Screenshot: Noupe)

The operators behind Ludus only think of this pretty long list as an entry point. Their role model is Slack, which has a solution for almost anything since it was opened for the third-party developer market.

Not Just Click and Slide; Designing is Possible Too

In contrast to other presentation tools, Ludus is not only able to compile materials from different sources. The software also has its own design tools, which exceed the means of average slideshow software.

Especially designers can go ham, and realize all of their specific design ideas. Those with Sketch experience will feel right at home in Ludus, according to Vincent Battaglia, the CTO, and co-founder of the project. To me, the interface is very reminiscent of an Adobe product.

Get a first impression from this video:

You Don’t Have to Pay for Ludus

Ludus is available in a free version, which is limited to one user and does not allow for collaborations. The number of presentations is limited to 20. This is the maximum number stores in Ludus. In the free version, you can only export your presentations to PDF format. At least, you have access to one gigabyte of storage, and you don’t need to forgo any editing features. So, assuming that you save your presentations as PDF, and don’t work on more than 20 of these audience tormentors at once, the free version should be sufficient.

If you don’t want to be limited regarding the number of presentations and wish to have access to an HTML export of your work, you need to grab the wallet. For 99 USD a year, you also get to protect your presentations with a password, create an easy to remember URL for each project, and gain access to more storage. This would be the pro account. Teams with up to ten users have to pay 499 USD a year, or 49 USD a month. In return, they receive the collaboration feature, allowing them to work on presentations together.

By the way, the term Ludus originates from Latin and describes an educational institution that children in ancient Rome used to visit to learn playfully. Recently, Ludus was made available to the public and can be used by anyone. So take a look at the Powerpoint of the future.

The brand new Chrome extension Freezetab turns managing your bookmarks with the Chrome browser into a treat.

Chrome’s Native Bookmark Management is Impractical

When saving lots of bookmarks, you probably won’t consider using the Chrome bookmark functionality. It is rather sub par, to say the least. It’s entirely based on the idea that you want to put every bookmark into a folder. This way, it won’t take long until you’ve set up tons of folders, or give up somewhere along the way, and just put all bookmarks into the same folder. This has little to nothing to do with organization.

All Here. But Try to Find it. | ninocare / Pixabay

The tab called “Bookmark Manager” doesn’t offer any other features either. Sure, you can search through all saved bookmarks with a free text search, but that’s about it. Instead of a stiff folder structure, a tag structure that allows you to assign multiple tags to a bookmark would be a lot better. Common bookmark services, like Delicious, have always offered this.

External Service Providers Tend to Vanish

However, we know that operators of services with low complexity, which apparently includes bookmarking services, are quick to shut them down. Does anyone remember Mister Wong? By now, Delicious is at its fifth owner as well. The news blog on the project can’t be accessed. Hmm.

Thus, relying on external services for your bookmarks is a bit risky. Some won’t want to do that simply because their bookmarks could allow the provider to gain some information on the one that saved these bookmarks. I’m sure that they’re a lot of people who wouldn’t want to make their bookmarks public. And that’s completely fine.

What’s Stored Locally is Yours to Keep

We need a local solution. The brand-new Chrome extension Freezetab is one. The storage of bookmarks is done locally, via Chrome’s Local Storage API. According to Freezetab’s developer Keith Brooks, it should be able to save between 10,000 and 15,000 tabs, aka bookmarks.

Freezetab: Not Pretty, But Useful

When it comes to the actual storing, Freezetab is pretty straightforward. All bookmarks are stored with their date when you save them. You don’t need to think about any classification criteria. Of course, you don’t have to remember when you created the bookmark to find it. And in fact, Freezetab offers a calendar view that lets you access the tabs of each respective day.

Freezetab: Tons of Functions

On top of that, there’s a free text search function that works across all saved tabs. Sorting all bookmarks by their origin websites is just as interesting. This way, you get an ordered list of all of your bookmarks from YouTube, or wherever else you actively place bookmarks. If you really want to, Freezetab also allows you to set up folders to manage your tabs.

When it comes to sorting, Freezetab offers even more options. However, aside from the domain-related sorting, the only other option that’s interesting to me is the filter that sorts the tab by currentness, or the storage date, from old to new.

Once again, when creating a bookmark, Freezetab is a lot more than you can imagine. You can save one tab at a time, all tabs at the same time, the current tab, all tabs to the right or left of the current tab, or everything except for the currently active tab. If you want to, Freezetab closes all tabs after saving them.

Use the option “Quick Save” to make Freezetab save all open tabs right away, without any query. However, this behavior can be adjusted in the options.

Just take a look at Freezetab yourself. To me, the extension seems like overkill at times. Keith Brooks seems to be so excited about his own abilities that he didn’t want to leave anything out regarding the feature set.

As a result, Freezetab is the local bookmark management with the most functions that I’ve seen. If you ignore a couple of features, you will find a way to enjoy it.

If you are in the process of integrating awareness into your life, you should also do so on the professional level. In design, this helps you in many different ways.

Barely Anyone Draws the Right Conclusions Voluntarily

At the start of last year, I started integrating awareness exercises into my daily routine. In the beginning, I had massive difficulties doing that. After all, I was used to 100 percent busting my ass upon entering the office.

Only once I started getting physical symptoms of burnout, I came to the conclusion that I should not ignore my body’s warning signs any longer. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Sleep is for the weak.” All of this has been a part of my mindset up to that point.

By now, I live a lot calmer, and surprisingly, I don’t accomplish that much less. However, my whole approach has changed. The first thing I got rid of was multitasking. Today, I complete my tasks one by one. While working on one, I don’t think about the next one either. One by one, step by step.

Awareness – You Can do it, You Just Have to Start.

Awareness is nothing you’d have to put effort into to learn it, even though that was what I expected initially, so I visited tons of courses. Awareness simply means focusing on the task at hand, and only on that. Essentially, it’s about differentiation.

There’s one ability you may have to learn first, though, and it’s how to say no. No, I’m currently working on XYZ. No, I can’t take care of that as well. No, no, no. No is immensely relaxing.

When focusing on a single thing, all other things, like your remaining tasks, become a lot less scary. Procrastination, creative embargos – all of this goes away after a while.

I mentioned differentiation. By that, I didn’t just mean differentiating oneself from human time thieves, which you’ll find in virtually every office, but the distinction from time thieves of any kind. When working on task A, put your smartphone away, turn on airplane mode, don’t surf the web on the side, and close the Twitter and Facebook apps.

The First Exercise: Only You, the Computer, and a Task

Now, there’s only you, your computer, and the task at hand. I recommend starting to practice awareness right there. Don’t get distracted. If it does happen, stop the distraction, and move your focus back to the actual task. It’s pretty logical that this type of focus leads to better and faster results. In that regard, awareness doesn’t block you; it actually accelerates you.

Once you’ve gotten in some practice in awareness during design work, you may have gotten into the state known as flow a few times. Now, you can expand your awareness exercises to other areas.

Other Attentive Behaviors That Improve Your Condition and Your Work Result

During conversations, no matter with who, put your smartphone to the side and just listen. You’ll be surprised at the things you catch when you’re doing nothing else. Listen very carefully, especially when it comes to customers. This doesn’t only show appreciation, but professionality as well. All of that for doing nothing but being completely present and attentive.

When it comes to project time schedules, don’t put yourself under pressure. Calculate your effort conservatively, but of course, not superabundantly. Keep in mind that you want to work on projects one by one, not simultaneously. Apparently, this comes with a longer duration of the individual project. During calculation, keep in mind that you only have a limited working time per day. Be attentive when it comes to yourself. You are the most valuable tool for earning your income. Don’t break it, and maintain it regularly.

Before you start designing, define the goals you need to achieve, and agree on fixed success criteria with your client. This is a criterion of differentiation as well. Projects often become stressful when there are different ideas on what is included in the scope of service, and what isn’t. This can be avoided by being attentive in that regard.

Be cautious when it comes to your toolbox. Don’t jump from tool to tool because everything is cute and colorful. Tie yourself down, at least for the project, preferably in general. You’ve been using Photoshop for your layouts for ten years? Stick with it. Sketch may be better. Who knows? But do you really want to put in the learning effort, just to find out that Sketch is half a second faster? I’ve decided to stick to the tools that I master. After all, when walking, I always rely on the same motions as well, avoiding experiments.

I hear this everywhere I look. Nobody thinks they’re creative. You say you simply couldn’t do it. I think, your idea of creativity is just wrong.

What is creativity to you? Do you believe that only painters, musicians, and other artists are creative? If that is the case, I think your definition of the term is way too tight. Creativity is solving old problems with new thoughts. Or solving them in general. To lower the threshold even more. Looking at it that way, every human is creative.

The only thing hampering your creativity is your conviction that you were not creative. You gave yourself a self-fulfilling prophecy that now claims its right. Changing that requires you to change your attitude.

Maybe, you’ve been creative before, and you feel as if your creativity had left you. I know that feeling. But don’t turn to the productivity gurus now. Instead, read my “No Bullshit” Guide For Creative Workers. That’ll get you further.

If you want to try a couple of techniques to help you get out of the creativity hole, try this one. Make sure to get enough sleep, eat healthily …

No, just kidding. Of course, all of this is important but doesn’t get you any immediate use. On top of that, you can also fall into the creativity hole when you’re full and well rested.

Going back to the realization that creativity is solving old problems with new approaches, it could help use adjusting the basic parameters of problem-solving.

Before, you may have let your mind drift freely, in order to get creative ideas. I’m sure you’ve done that. After all, relaxed thinking is one of the basic requirements to get your creative juices going.

Don’t do it. Do the opposite, and limit yourself. Restrict your options for the solution of a problem. Limit them to the point that there are only a few ways to solve it. In 2008, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said that, according to his experience, the foundation for innovation is always a restriction. He always had the most creative ideas for Amazon when the money was the tightest. Bezos said that if you’re locked into a tight box, you are the only one that can find the way out. Whether it be about money, time, or other conditions. Limits drive innovation. Try it for yourself.

Another method is doing something that you can’t do. This paradoxical behavior stimulates problem solution areas within you, that you might not have known of before. Another paradoxical behavior would be taking a break in the fast office routine, or accelerating in calm minutes. Surprise your brain. It will definitely react.

However, the most important thing is giving up your conviction that you are not creative before it burns itself into your synapses forever. This conviction is always wrong. You ARE creative.

Noupe readers have known Webydo for a while. We had already introduced you to the web design software in 2013. Today, we want to take a look at how the website builder has evolved since then.

2013 was an exciting year for Webydo. While the system already existed for two years at that point, the public didn’t know about it. These two years were used to finish the software for the market release in a private beta. This way, it was no surprise that Webydo boasted references from over 13,000 designers and more than 70,000 websites from the get-go. Today, the website is a matured product maintained by a matured company. What it offers is a wide array of solutions directed towards designers, and drawn from their B2B needs.

Webydo, Clear Separation From Homepage Building Kits

What makes Webydo so unique? At a glance, you might think of Webydo as just another one of those homepage builder specimen. There’s a lot of competition in that space, and all website builders are mainly aimed towards consumers.

Modern Websites Created With Webydo.

This is where Webydo clearly sets itself apart. Its clear focus on designers and the support of their business models stays present throughout the software’s entire philosophy. Designers that open Webydo for the first time will feel at home right away, as the interface, the controls, the style, and everything else reminds us of the design products made in the house of Adobe.

Webydo’s Outstanding Features

To an extent, the precise orientation towards designers as the target group already defined the design of the user interface, and the entire feature set. As mentioned before, Webydo is close to the giants of graphic design software. This makes the learning effort accordingly low. Especially Photoshop aficionados will love Webydo, as a beloved, old friend is also available here: layers.

Design without code is Webydo’s motto.

Different modes allow you to view and evaluate the websites from the perspective of the designer, the customer that is supposed to add content, and the casual internet visitor. Although it’s almost standard these days, I still want to mention that Webydo creates responsive websites.

The Automatic Layout Tool, Smart Grouping, and Drag Handle

The Automatic Layout Tool lets you move elements into new layouts automatically. This makes it possible to display a bunch of elements as a grid, and – on click – turn it into a single column for the responsive variant. Always keep in mind that we’re talking about a solution that does not require any coding knowledge. The author of this article is fully aware that such can be done with CSS ;-)

The Automatic Layout Tool (GIF: Webydo)

Using smart grouping, users can group different elements, and edit that group as a whole. This is another essential tool for responsive sites.

The drag handle allows you to move elements around the design by mouse, while always keeping the element within the grid. Even small movements, to minimize whitespace, for instance, are smooth and straightforward.

Drag Handle (GIF: Webydo)

Interface Design

Being able to freely arrange the toolboxes (called panels), should also come in handy to a designer’s workflow.

Other Contemporary Features

Of course, the website builder also offers all the features that are currently trending, including parallax, even in the 3D form, ghost buttons, galleries, and tons of other stuff.

Strengthen Your Brand with a Blog.

In the on-site Webydo blog, you’ll find explanations, inspirations, and general information on the Webydo feature set. The blog basically marks the link between the product and the wider design environment.

Just Like your Favorite Pixel Editor: Layers

Webydo’s Business Functions

Webydo’s goal is to not only help you with a design tool but also provide you with the best possible support when it comes to handling your business. It does this in different ways.

First, Webydo gives you a very user-friendly CMS, enabling your customers to take care of his content on his own. In advance, you have already defined which areas they are permitted to alter in the layout.

Next, Webydo allows you to brand the entire system. This way, none of your customers will ever see the term Webydo. This white-labeling is also possible for the CMS backend. There are almost no others in the branch that are that altruistic.

To round out the feature set, you get to send bills for your services to your customers, directly from the backend. On this occasion, I should probably mention that all the traffic to, and away from Webydo is SSL-encrypted.

While this is not one of the traditional services designers usually offer, it does belong to a complete website package: SEO, the search engine optimization. The integrated tools can even be used for that. Thus, the SEO basics are always covered.

Webydo’s Knowledge Base Helps You Get Started And Going

As building a community had been a high priority from the beginning, Webydo was able to create an active, friendly following, willing to help you at any time. Webydo’s support staff is also available 24/7 and even helps you through difficulties via live chat.

An extensive video documentation educates you about all of the tool’s aspects. For direct requests or individual problems, there are feedback forms, but also the old reliable phone line available to you. You can also suggest new features, report bugs, or upvote new features in the roadmap.

In any case, you’ll never be left alone. Webydo doesn’t give you the impression that you’re just any random customer. Here, someone seems to be legitimately interested in improving your business.

Webydo and the Prices

At the latest, a look at Webydo’s pricing model will show you that this is not meant for the average consumer. Even the smallest package includes CMS and hosting for ten websites when used by one designer. The billing system is also included in the plan. With annual payment, you’ll pay 75 USD a month. Starting with the team account for 150 USD, aside from thirty websites, the above-mentioned white-labelling is possible. Find other plans with higher limits on this site.

At this point, you’ll realize that choosing Webydo is not like choosing other tools. Webydo represents the aspiration to fully support you in your design business, making it an all-or-nothing decision.

Of course, this is not easy to decide, and should always be looked at individually. However, there is nothing wrong with the feature set. If you don’t know Webydo, you should definitely give it a try.

In the past, this was out of the question: presentations were done at the client’s place or in your office space. During my studies, I learned how to glue printed drafts to cardboard, to show them during presentations. Even web layouts were printed and presented that way. Nowadays, the ways, and options, of presentation have changed. By now, thanks to the internet, a presentation can also be done when you’re separated from the customer both spatially, and time-wise.

Presentation on Location: Elaborate and Time-Consuming

Nobody will present a web layout on a traditional presentation board anymore. It takes at least a projector and a canvas to show a website in front of, possibly multiple clients.

This way of presenting is connected to a certain effort. A date with all participants available has to be determined. Technology needs to be prepared, and, obviously, the presentation itself takes up time as well.

Naturally, it’s very tempting to just send out a presentation as a PDF, or the link to the website prototype via email. This way, the client gets to look at the draft for as long as he wants, as well as read through provided comments or explanations.

Especially those that don’t consider themselves to be great speakers and convincers may prefer this type of presentation. Not only because it saves time, and possibly takes less effort. You also avoid the alleged danger of a poor “performance.”

Don’t Underestimate Direct Contact

Nonetheless, an internet presentation – whether it’s an email with a PDF attachment or a simple link – comes with big risks. While you as the designer or developer wait on the client’s reply, you have no influence on how the blueprint is perceived.

You are unable to immediately address criticism and open questions. Often, a draft is handed over to a colleague, asking them for their impression. Family members and friends are also a popular way to get input on the draft. In the end, about a dozen of people may have seen and thought about your draft. In a lot of cases, the general opinion will be more on the negative side.

That’s because designers and developers focus on usability, target audience, and other objective aspects, while clients – and all other people that saw the outline – decide with a simple, personal “like” or “dislike.”

Presenting on site, however, allows you to address criticism and questions right away. Ambiguities can be removed quickly, or don’t even come up. Suggestions for changes are another thing you get to react to instantly.

Client-sided suggestions for changes and improvements are often a delicate topic. Not every suggestion works for the client. In a personal conversation, these proposals can be turned down, and explained easier.

Even Presentation Grouches Should Present On Location

Although it seems simple to forgo an on-site presentation, even presentation grouches should swallow the seemingly bitter pill. Even with the best ideas, you’ll often have to convince people first. The best way to do so is personal and direct. You don’t need to be a rhetorical expert to do so. If you’re convinced of your work, you should be able to show this to your client.

Cards with keywords or small PowerPoint presentations help you to not get off track during a speech.

When Email Presentations Make Sense

Although on-site presentations are sensible and necessary in many cases, of course, there are plenty of situations where an email presentation is entirely fine. If the design and realization have already been discussed, or even determined, the risk of general criticism that has to be addressed right away is low.

Here, there’s no reason to send intermediate results or a finished project to your client. There’s nothing wrong with the email route when it comes to small projects with the effort of an on-site presentation bearing no relation to the budget.

In any case, with an email presentation, you should always ask for questions or ambiguities, to be able to react to them as soon as possible.

Combination of On-Site and Internet Presentations

Especially with big projects, one presentation won’t always do the trick. Between the presentation of the layout, concept, and the final presentation, it makes sense to show the client intermediate steps as well, to get their permission.

Here, you don’t always have to set up an on location presentation. To solve a bunch of details that come up in larger projects, it is recommended to use tools that ease the workflow of these projects.

Web applications like “Live Capture” by InVision and Diigo allow you to upload drafts, and seek feedback. Here, it’s possible to draw on the drafts, as well as place comments directly within the draft.

Even in larger teams, it is feasible to answer any questions, and any design or concept errors can be determined. Thanks to these tools, this is very uncomplicated and faster than trying to solve all these issues via email or phone.

Conclusion

In general, an email can rarely replace a personal presentation. Instead, digital forms of presentation should mainly be used as additional means of cooperation, to lead a project to its successful end.

]]>Webhosting 2017: The Year of the Public Cloudhttps://www.noupe.com/business-online/webhosting-2017-the-public-cloud.html
Fri, 05 May 2017 08:00:07 +0000https://www.noupe.com/?p=102234]]>

Choosing the appropriate hosting plan, as well as a suitable provider is a difficult task. This is even harder for site owners that cannot already look back at years or decades of experience. The cloud could be some jack of all trades solution.

The Cloud, What’s That?

When talking about the “cloud,” most of the time, what we mean are services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box, to name a few. These services store our data in own structures, defined by the software product behind it. Calendars, task managers, CRM programs, and other apps are being used as cloud-based solutions, some in the form of software-as-a-service (SaaS), more and more often as well.

Up to this point, the concept has not been able to establish itself when it comes to the most obvious topic, web hosting. However, this will change rather quickly. The first, at least the first German provider I know of that provides cloud-based web hosting, is called Hostnet, with its “Managed Root Cloud.” For the sake of completion, I should mention that, in this cloud, Hostnet does not only allow for the hosting of websites, via WordPress or Typo3, for instance. In fact, you can also use the offer for the hosting of project management software, or other apps for business, and private purposes. The cloud is the cloud. It doesn’t care about what you want to provide inside of it.

Cloud: What Does This Mean?

Let’s start with the terminologies. What does the term “cloud” even mean?

We don’t need to discuss the topic from a linguistic standpoint, as that won’t get us anywhere. All that we can interpret looking at the term “cloud,” is that it’s something outside of our own sphere, with a size that is not predefined.

Under this aspect, “Shared Hosting,” “Dedicated Servers,” and the classic “vServers” are no cloud offers. While the devices that provide these offers are outside of our own space, their size is limited from the get-go. You’ll always rent clearly defined performance levels, so there’s no scalability. Upgrades require you to switch the offer, or even physically update the server.

Modern Servers Are Space-Saving. Combined, They Make Up the Cloud. (Photo: Pixabay)

Whereas the cloud’s biggest advantage is, that it can grow completely flexibly, without causing any difficulties when it comes to performance provision. Do you need more processing power? Book more. Do you need more storage, more bandwidth, or whatever? Just book it.

Here, it’s fascinating that you don’t have to continually pay for the additional performance, making you able to react to load demands in flexible ways, which is another thing that separates cloud offers from classic hostings.

You expect a massive flood of visitors on day X, as you will be presenting your startup at a larger event that day? Don’t go out of your way to change the server, instead, take a cloud hosting with flexible performance data. Your business is the strongest from November to January, as you sell toys? Why should you pay for high capacities for the entire year, just to prevent your server from crashing in the short three winter months? Cloud hosting is much more suitable here. Just book time, or load-dependent capacities. There are tons of examples for the meaningfulness of this approach.

How Does the Cloud Work?

Of course, in the end, the cloud is nothing else but a computer or a group of computers that process, store, or deliver information for you. The way they do it is what makes the difference between them and conventional solutions.

Of Course, In the End, the Cloud is Physical. (Photo: Pixabay)

When deciding on a cloud offer, you’re booking an entirely virtual product. This product provides certain performance characteristics. However, they are not rigid. Theoretically, a cloud offer could scale freely, achieving mainframe performance levels.

In reality, however, the individual provider of the cloud solution defines the general framework, as he is the one that has to provide the technology. With the offer mentioned above by Hostnet, the performance “scales” between 200 GB and 1 TB of storage, between two and 16 CPUs, as well as between two and 32 GB of RAM. In fact, there are scenarios, for which these general framework conditions would be restrictive, but the range of specifications should be more than sufficient for web hosting.

At its core, the “cloud” is nothing more than software, a virtual machine. Possibly, you’re even using this kind of virtual machine yourself, hosting a local web server on your computer, or having a current Linux distribution on your Windows device, for instance.

These virtual machines can also be limited to certain performance stats, and allow for a very specific configuration overall. In the world of data centers, the same principle applies, although here, the software can even pool the performance of multiple devices flexibly. With proper planning, this lets you make use of the given infrastructure in the best way possible.

With or Without Clouds, the Cloud Basically Works Everywhere. (Photo: Pixabay)

In the traditional “shared hosting”, the offer where an undefined number of customers is being hosted on one physical server, in the past twenty years, I have seen more than a dozen occasions where projects had to be moved, forcing them to go offline – mostly at night – for one or two hours. Almost always, the reason for that was that too heavy of a load was created on the previous server, so it needed to be reduced by moving a couple of customers to other devices. Thinking about it, it is very easy to realize that this prevents an economically immaculate use of the available resources within a data center.

Ultimately, we can say that a cloud offer is the most flexible – up to its own limits -, and most affordable solution for hosting of any kind. Only very big companies, those that actually need their own data centers, have to think about alternatives. This is where the differences between the “Private Cloud,” and the “Public Cloud” come into play.

What’s the Public Cloud?

The “Public Cloud” is the cloud that I described in this article. It’s the cloud that we use together with others, only renting a piece that we get to scale until it suits us, or until the limits of the cloud provider have been reached.

What’s the Private Cloud?

The “Private Cloud” is identical to the “Public Cloud,” except for one important aspect. In this case, the physical devices that are the foundation of the cloud architecture are only available to one company. There are no recourses to third parties. To describe it using old terminology, the “Private Cloud” basically is a “Dedicated Cloud.”

The “Private Cloud” is a trend that more and more large businesses join in on, trying to optimize their business processes. For the most part, this is done in the form of hybrid usage. Here, some parts are outsourced into the cloud, but others are kept locally, allowing them to benefit from the advantages of both worlds in the most optimal way. Depending on the branch, it can also be a matter of legal compliance that prevents them from completely switching to the cloud.

Is Cloud Hosting the Means of Choice for Every Page Operator?

Cloud hosting will most definitely be the default model of the future. Regarding price, in some countries, it is not yet as interesting to smaller brands and businesses as it could be when looking at the international competition.

The old school “Shared Hosting” could fall prey to the trend. However, even in the future, there will still be demand for cheap web space, which is not going to be covered by the new offers. Very recently, the web developer Brad Smith took a look at the international cheap hosts in this article.

]]>Not Without a Business Model: Why “Just Do It” is Not a Good Advicehttps://www.noupe.com/business-online/not-without-a-business-model-why-just-do-it-is-not-a-good-advice.html
Wed, 12 Apr 2017 08:00:56 +0000https://www.noupe.com/?p=101890]]>

Customer benefit, profit model, available resources: these are not the only important aspects that are often neglected when you and your friends come up with the new Facebook. Nonetheless, social media accounts with the new company names are set up first. Often, there’s a lack of a larger perspective – a business model can help with that.

The Aftermath

Two new domains were secured, Facebook and Twitter profiles, as well as a YouTube channel, were created. The search for license-free images for the future website had already started. What happened? In the evening, after the workout, a group of friends drank some beer together, and came up with “the best idea ever”!

Sadly, most of the time, it stays an idea, and the hot flame of motivation turns into a cold lump of disappointment.

Risk: Having an Idea and Just Doing it

Often, between a good idea and getting started, there’s only one intermediate step missing – but it’s an important one. If the action is not taken, there’s a risk of the entire project freezing up. An example: the idea “online shop for t-shirts with cute cats” may seem like a way to make money off of the cat video hype. And friend 1 watches a lot of YouTube videos so that he can start an own channel tomorrow – a compilation of the best videos. Friend 2 was pretty good at drawing in college, so he’ll do the graphics. There’s also a ton of cat images on the internet so that you could print these. Friend 3 is a social media connoisseur and knows that cat content does great. Visitors will get to the online shop via Facebook and Youtube, and the t-shirts will sell like hot cakes!

But is all of that enough for three people to at least make some decent money on the side? Were the resources evaluated properly, was the market observed, the unique added value underlined?

No. Chances of this project getting stuck and given up are very high.

The decisive step before starting is missing: the idea has to be turned into a sustainable business model.

Necessary: Viable Business Model

A good idea has to be embedded in a good business model. That’s the ideal. A common witticism on the topic goes like this: “It’s easier to realize a bad idea with a good business model than the best idea without one.” Unfortunately, the author is unknown but deserves a flower bouquet.

Four Main Elements of Business Models According to Stähler

Patrick Stähler, author of “Founding the Right Thing. Toolbox for Entrepreneurs.”, says that a good business model addresses four key elements. Here, all of them are equally important and closely connected to each other.

The value proposition, the promise to the customer, to solve an individual problem. Also: what impresses the client? This is where the added value is.

The business structure – here’s where the product comes in, but marketing channels, production, and advertisement belong to this element.

Stähler talks about the promise to the customer, the added value. Without it, there won’t be any success, because who buys a product without expecting anything from it? In the cat example, the added value could already be that the customer gets a great gift idea directly while watching the cat video. He’s also able to order said idea in just a few clicks, as a gift, for instance. Everyone has already gotten clothing as a gift: a giant market? You can find that out. But to do so, the added value has to be clear. Only those that know which needs are covered by their product can pull the according levers in distribution and marketing. He fully understands his supply.

Solution: Filling Business Model Canvas

Alexander Osterwalder and his Professor Yves Pigneur have released the well-known book Business Model Generation” in 2010. In there, he shows how the business model’s elements are summarized in the form of a building kit. He called it the “Business Model Canvas,” which has become one of the most popular portrayals of the business model.

The canvas’ intention is to be able to display the own business idea, embedded in a valid business model, on a single piece of paper. To do so, Osterwalder defined so-called key factors – primarily the most important areas of the business, like customers, distribution channels, partners, and so on.

Here, you can clearly see how close it is to Stähler’s comprehension. The neat thing about Osterwalder’s template is, that it is licensed under a creative commons license, meaning everyone can download, print, and use it (here, for example).

By the way: the limited space on the canvas is not a coincidence. The founder is forced to only note the most important keywords in every area. The business plan is later created on the basis of the filled out Business Model Canvas.

Additionally, the key factors can not be altered. “Normally,” as by now, there is software out there that moved that model into the web browser. There, adjustments to the original template were made, which does make sense for individual branches.

Conclusion: Dash Off, But Only With a Solid Plan

Those carrying around an exciting business idea, and already see themselves on an island with a bag of money, be advised: first, sit down, develop a business model, then dash off. The idea can only be turned into something true with a solid business model. Next up is hard work, and maybe the bag of money can actually fill at that point. Best of luck!

You know the problem: tons of things want you to get them done, and your schedule is already full to bursting. You’d like to introduce 72-hour days, as that would finally give you enough time for all projects. But days only have 24 hours. Keep cool, because efficiency and success can be planned if you know how.

Sometimes, small changes to your work schedule are all it takes to make you get work done more successfully, and even more importantly, much faster.

Success does not mean working longer, but just making better, and more productive use of your time.

In this article, you’ll learn four strategies that are guaranteed to get your everyday work more focused, and more efficient.

Being Efficient Means Making Better Use of Your Time

Make the Most Out of Your Time Using Simple Strategies.

With today’s tips, you’ll be able to check off your to-dos a lot faster, leaving more time for the things you truly care about.

Every day, freelancers and employees have to fight a problem that just originates from faulty plans.

The lack of time. In many cases, it is caused by daily to-do lists that are more reminiscent of a novel than a doable list of daily tasks.

However, the actual problem is hidden in a different spot, as humans and their various abilities certainly can solve the most difficult tasks in no time, if the focus is right.

Focus is key when it comes to a successful way of working. Too many tasks to switch in between of are too much for our brain to handle. It always takes a certain “training period” when having to switch between tasks.

Focus Gets You More Time

Concentration Lets You Get Your Tasks Done Quicker.

Many people are making the mistake of letting their thoughts jump around between tasks. Not only does this cost you time, but it is also reflected in the result. The quality of the single completed tasks drops, and in the worst case, none of the tasks is completed.

Imagine a piece of paper on a beautiful summer day. Put it on a meadow and hope that it inflames. Of course, this won’t work.

To inflame it, you need a magnifier that lets you focus the sunlight onto one point. Only then will the paper burn. Thus, use the law of concentration, and you’ll be able to get your tasks done purposefully and quickly.

Strategy One: Work Down Your ToDo List Depending on Priority

This one is tough to do, I know. But it’s one of the best pieces of advice I can give you. Every evening, write down a to-do list for the next day, placing the most important tasks at the very top. The most important things come first, the less important ones follow.

Always start your day with the most important, most difficult task. Don’t get distracted, close your email client, and focus exclusively on this one task. Only once this is done, go for the other tasks.

This way, you start off your day with substantial success. Then, the remaining tasks seem like child’s play. This helps you push your self-esteem, and you’ll assume successful working habits.

You will be able to get your work done much faster. It will also help you get done blog posts quicker. This leaves you with enough time for other things – like your family, for example.

Strategy Two: Use Your Focus Technique!

Working More Effectively and Faster Using a Focus Technique.

Even really successful people sometimes struggle to focus and keep up the focus until the end of a task. To circumvent this problem, the “Pomodoro Technique” by Francesco Cirillo is a good pick.

This technique is as simple as it is effective, and will help you get through these moments.

It Works Like This:

Turn off all sources of distraction. No smartphone, no Facebook or Twitter, no distraction from colleagues or family.

Set a classic egg timer to 25 minutes and work very focused for these 25 minutes. When working with a colleague in an office, put on headphones if it could be helpful for your concentration.

After the 25 minutes are done, take a 5-minute break. Get up, stretch, breathe in fresh air at the opened window.

Now, start the next 25 minutes of highly focused work.

After the fourth session, take a longer break of 15 to 25 minutes.

Repeat.

This method helps thousands of people to work off their daily to-do lists quickly and successfully. By the way, Francesco Cirillo used a tomato-shaped egg timer to measure the 25-minute units, hence the name.

Strategy Three: Work Standing Up Sometimes

Many successful people have worked standing up. This doesn’t mean that you should work exclusively standing up, but from time to time, you should. Use a high desk for your job, if possible.

Standing up, you’ll also feel a lot less tired, making you more productive. Thus, it is no surprise that successful people like Winston Churchill, Leonardo da Vinci, or Ernest Hemingway liked working at a high desk.

Divide your work time into blocks, and try to work standing up for a part of them. If your employer doesn’t want to pay for a high desk, I recommend buying one from your own money and using it in the office. At home, you can also set up a place for working standing up.

Even modern and innovative businesses like Google, Facebook, and SAP use height-adjustable desks, as these companies know that their workers are more productive, healthier, and happier due to standing up more frequently.

Strategy Four: When Writing, Always Work On a Timer

Working On a Timer Allows You to Become More Efficient.

You have to write a lot due to your job or in private? Writing is like any other craft. To be able to write faster, leaving you with more time for other things, there are two factors.

1 – Practice Makes Perfect

The more often you write, the faster you’ll be able to write. Practice makes perfect and automatically results in a higher pace. However, if you just started out blogging, focus on the quality of your articles. Speed automatically comes with practice.

2 – Always Write Against a Timer

Get a countdown program, where you get to enter a certain time which will then be counted down. Starting out, you should be able to write an article with more than 1000 words in about three to four hours. So, first set a timer to four hours, and see how this time works for you.

Once you’re more experienced with writing and don’t have to search for every single key on the keyboard, challenge yourself to see how you can handle two hours. This would be the time in which experienced writers should be able to get done. Either way, this technique will definitely allow you to write faster; I’m using it as well.

]]>https://www.noupe.com/business-online/freelance/goodbye-stress-four-effective-work-strategies.html/feed1Brainstorming – Go On the Hunt For Ideas Using These Four Methodshttps://www.noupe.com/business-online/freelance/brainstorming-go-hunt-ideas-using-four-methods.html
https://www.noupe.com/business-online/freelance/brainstorming-go-hunt-ideas-using-four-methods.html#commentsTue, 04 Apr 2017 08:00:21 +0000https://www.noupe.com/?p=101846]]>

Many occupational fields only work because of creative people and their realization of innovative ideas. To generate better results, we often fall back to creative techniques that promise a higher success rate. Brainstorming is one of them.

Brainstorming is often used to work out solutions for given problems in a group. But what if the traditional method doesn’t work? We want these four alternatives to give you new impulses, helping you to get your brain cells going again.

The Classic of Idea Generation: Brainstorming

Aside from brainstorming, mind mapping is another one of the so-called classic techniques. Both are used to come up with solutions to problems as fast as possible. Both during studies and during the working life, creative techniques are very popular. Due to the mutual exchange of thoughts, the participant’s ideas are accumulated, and an efficient strategy is developed afterward. However, this often causes problems that surely sound familiar: For one, meetings are often spontaneous and last-minute. In addition to that, many studies prove that this type of idea generation can become counterproductive under the following criteria:

Team members may block each other

They have inhibitions regarding their superiors

The created conditions have an adverse effect on the participants

However, if a business or the boss makes sure that the environment is optimal, traditional brainstorming may lead to success. Experts believe that you should make sure that the group size does not exceed eight members. If too many people participate in idea generation, the block each other, and no common thread can be found. To deliver different food for thought, it is also beneficial when the participants work in various fields. The IT specialist contributes input that is distinct from the resource manager’s or that of the accountant. They are still able to develop a strategy that boosts the business’s efficiency.

However, if the classic variant is not successful for you, you should try one of the four alternatives that we’ll present to you here:

1. Brainwriting

Brainwriting can work in different ways: in the classic version, you also meet up with your teammates. However, ideas are not communicated verbally but written on a piece of paper instead. Once everyone noted down their ideas, the sheets are passed on to the seatmate so that he gets to add his thoughts. This creates a basis for a discussion, which the group can use to advance the project.
In the past years, the trend shifted towards a collective notebook. Here, there’s either a public notebook for everyone to enter their ideas or each worker keeps a private creative notebook. Publishers like the German brandbook.de have released a notebook for creative workers, which is packed with inspiring illustrations, providing the right conditions for creativity. In there, you get to write down your notes and spontaneous inspirations. After a certain amount of time, the group presents the solutions and discusses them.

2. Brainwalking

Motion benefits both body and spirit – this statement is very well-known. Physical activity does not only help to keep the body healthy, but the better blood circulation also leads to more creativity. Brainwalking is used effectively when flipcharts with one topic each are placed in the office. Every worker looks at the single flipcharts, writing down all spontaneous ideas that come to mind. Once all members are done, results are generated together.

3. Brain Swarming

As we all know, a group consists of both different characters and different ways of working: there are extroverts and introverts, that either tackle a problem from the top or at the bottom. Brain swarming gives every member the opportunity to work on their own, without being exposed to the rules of other participants. The problem with brain swarming is, that the extrovert colleagues lead the discussion, while the introverts stay in the background. However, every employee should be able to contribute their own ideas.

4. Walt Disney Method

The famous film producer has not only revolutionized childrens’ movies but also created a creativity technique that is very popular. In this method, three roles are assigned: the dreamer, the realist, and the critic. During the idea generation, the participants switch between the roles and look at the problem from different points of view. While roleplay may not be all that popular among the workers, the technique’s efficiency is proven. You start as the dreamer, looking at the goal without any rules or limits. In the role of the realist, you focus on the realization of the ideas. In the end, the critic takes a sceptical look at the problem and points out unanswered questions. This order is repeated until the critic has nothing left to criticize.

Many Ways Lead to a Result

All the techniques we presented leave a lot of room for the generation of ideas – as long as they are conducted objectively. If the participants don’t get involved, no productive examination of the problem can take place. When realized correctly, they can replace the traditional brainstorming in the sense that every worker gets to share their own ideas without having to fear criticism.

One important tool for every human, and especially for web workers, is the calendar. A majority of the daily organization is done on them – and not just on a single device such as the paper planner from the old days.

It is important that appointments and tasks are correctly displayed, and kept up to date on every device, such as notebook and smartphone. For Apple users, this is simple, because the Apple operating systems take care of that themselves. But by now, there are good and elaborate solutions for Windows and Android as well. Today, I will introduce you to the best cross-platform solutions, so that you stay organized, and don’t miss any appointments.

Note that I wrote „cross-platform.” This means that you won’t find any apps here that are exclusive to one platform. The minimum precondition to be featured here was the availability of a web app.

Once Upon a Time: Apple’s iCal is Now Called Calendar and Looks a Lot More Modern.

What Makes for a Good Calendar / Taskmanager Solution

Nowadays, the average creative does not work on a single device anymore. Instead, aside from the computer or notebook, smartphones or tablets are used as well. Thus, the first, and most important requirement is a fast and reliable synchronization of appointments and tasks across all used devices. A clear structure is just as important. You have to be able to find your way quickly. It also wouldn’t hurt if there were the option to share appointments and deadlines with others.

We’ve taken a look at a couple of solutions from these points of view. Here are the results:

Sunrise Calendar

Sunrise was a promising solution until it was taken over and discontinued by Microsoft. The servers have been resting since mid-2016. Now, a few features are supposed to be directly integrated into Outlook. I have not seen anything on that as of right now. For the sake of melancholy, I’ll still leave the Sunrise Calendar in this article for a while. (ahe)

Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Outlook has been a thing for a solid twenty years now, and it has never been free of charge. Ever since Outlook.com replaced the previous free mailers Hotmail and Live Mail, the overall image is differentiated. Outlook as a program is still charged for Windows computers. You can either buy it for about 135 Euro, or rent it with the rest of the Office365 series. If you do that, it will cost you 69 Euro a year, while giving you access to all Office products, as well as one Terabyte of online storage on OneDrive. With Dropbox, storage alone would be more expensive, which was the reason why I switched from Dropbox to OneDrive, by the way.

However, if you don’t want to spend any money, you could also use the Outlook web app just like the mobile apps that are available for Android, iOS, and Windows smartphones. Outlook also integrates Mac and Google calendars, letting you build some type of news and appointment center that works via the web, and on your mobile devices.

Microsoft Outlook for Mobile: Android on the Left, iOS on the Right

I use Outlook as my default mail client on both iOS and Android. I am still not exhausting the software, though. I could also use it to manage my appointments. I also have them integrated, so I get a complete overview in Outlook. The only thing I don’t do is managing them in there, but that’s personal preference. For me, the reason for that is that I use the Google apps on the desktop, so on mobile devices, all I need is a good overview of the data.

On iOS, I mainly use Outlook for its ability to separate the few relevant from the masses of other messages. I have disabled notifications for other messages, making sure that iOS will only notify me when there are important mails. In the other case, using the iOS mail app, I would get a notification every couple of minutes. Annoying.

Microsoft Outlook: Web App

Outlook definitely belongs into our overview. Even the free version provides enough comfort and synchronization options to meet higher standards. By the way, if you also need a desktop version to access the information, you can just use the built-in programs on macOS. Under Windows, use the mail app and start the calendar app from there. All of that works very smoothly. (dpe)

Wunderlist

Wunderlist: Landing Page

Speaking of Microsoft, we might as well take a look at Wunderlist as a cross-platform taskmanager solution. Wunderlist was also swallowed by the company from Redmond, but, at least for now, it didn’t suffer the same fate as the Sunrise app. Instead, the task manager from Berlin is still being operated in the same way as before. Aside from the free version, there is a Wunderlist Pro for 4.49 Euro a month that contains slightly expanded functionalities for powerusers. I have never reached these limits.

Wunderlist shines with its extremely broad platform support since the beginning, and nothing has changed about that. There are native apps for macOS, Windows, Android, iOS, and Windows smartphones. You can also integrate bookmarklets for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, or install a Chrome extension. Wunderlist is seamlessly integrable into Microsoft’s Outlook.

Wunderlist: No Matter Which App You Use. The Look is Always the Same.

Aside from all the native options, Wunderlist can also be used as a web app – it basically doesn’t get more flexible than that. Especially in conjunction with Outlook, Wunderlist displays all of its strengths to the fullest, but users of other systems and services shouldn’t hesitate to use it either. (dpe)

Kin Calendar

The Kin Calendar is currently in a beta stage which is only accessible via invite. According to the developers, the creation of this solution directly relates to the vanishing of the Sunrise Calendar. Because of that, it is no surprise that Kin strongly orientates itself towards the faded role model in terms of design.

Kin Calendar: Pretty, But Still Very Rudimentary.

At the current moment, Kin is no real alternative to other solutions mentioned in this article, even for people like me, who do have an invite. Sure, Kin looks fantastic. All interactions are smoothly animated, and there are some integrations with services like Trello, or Wunderlist already. Visually, Kin is a stunner. But there’s not much else here yet, and no mobile apps either.

If, however, the speed of innovation should keep going at this pace, Kin may soon rise to become one of the stars of this article. (dpe)

Google Calendar

Google delivers a classic amongst the cross-platform calendar solutions. Google Calendar can be synchronized with Android and iOS perfectly, and even the Mac calendar is usable in conjunction with Google Calendar. Of course, there are apps for both Android and iOS. Additionally, iOS and Mac users can use Google Calendar with their native calendar solutions after a simple configuration. Windows users either get to use the web interface or synchronize Google Calendar with the Thunderbird extension Lightning. The Microsoft solution Outlook is also fully compatible with the Google Calendar.

The good thing is, that users can share their calendars, both publicly and with selected people. One peculiarity is that it’s possible to subscribe to the Google Calendar via feed. Furthermore, you get to embed the calendars in websites, a feature that not a lot of services have to offer. Now, it’s almost natural that you get to invite other people to events. (ahe)

Any.do

Any.do is not a calendar app, but a task manager. The paid app is easy to use and perfectly synchronizes on all devices. There are apps for Android and iOS respectively, there is a particular extension for Chrome, and a web interface.

The to-do lists can be shared with friends, family members or colleagues. Share the buying list with your partner, plan an event with your friends, or simply keep track of an occupational project. Any.do can be integrated into Gmail via extension, chiming into every email to provide task options. (ahe)

Any.do Cal

Probably due to the large success of the task manager app, the creators of Any.do decided to put out a calendar to go with the task planner. This one has the simple name Cal and seamlessly ties into the look of Any.do.

This video only shows the Android App. However, it is mostly identical to the iOS version both visually and functionally. In contrast to Any.do itself, there is no web app, at least for now. Cal is available for free as well.

The catch is, that Cal is not an actual calendar, but can only be used as the frontend for a calendar that you have set up somewhere else. For example, you get to manage your Google Calendar using Cal. That means, if you don’t use a calendar service yet, Cal is not an alternative for you.

Cal by Any.do: The App is Pretty, No Doubt.

Cal only gets you full utility when using it together with the task manager Any.do, which is why you can, and should, connect the two services. If you don’t do that, Cak will repeatedly annoy you with the recommendation to do it.

When using Cal, it is very clear that the developers’ main focus was the design. This caused decisions that are questionable in some spots. Of course, it looks a lot better when only one day is visible. But sometimes, an overview over an entire week, or at least an agenda view would be a lot more helpful. Cal doesn’t provide either. Instead, you get the most beautiful dialog for adding new appointments on the market. (dpe)

Todoist

Todoist is celebrating its tenth birthday in 2017. By now, almost 50 people are working on the service that recently welcomed its 10 millionth user. Todoist had its own approach from the very beginning, its own idea of task management. I don’t know if, or how often the team has had internal discussions about adding a calendar to the task management. Anyway, this has not happened yet, and after ten years, I wouldn’t expect it to.

So the first thing we notice when looking for a calendar is that there’s no calendar. In Todoist, the display of tasks is generally done in lists. Here, there are time-related lists like “today” and “following seven days”. In there, you’ll also see the days with no tasks assigned to them, so, with a lot of fantasy, you could use this view as a calendar. Of course, how you use Todoist is your thing. You could just enter all appointments as tasks, even though it was not meant to be done that way.

One key strength of Todoist is its extensive platform support. No matter which mobile device you use, there’s an app. Native apps are also available for Windows and macOS, even though the web app was still completely sufficient to me. I don’t use a native Todoist app on desktop devices. Instead, I use the web interface exclusively.

On top of all the apps, there are several extensions available for Todoist, allowing users to integrate Todoist into Gmail or Outlook, for instance. I also like to use the browser extension that allows me to add the website I just visited as a task.

Visually, Todoist is reduced to the absolute minimum, making working with the service very simple and focused. Todoist has been doing everything that is now being preached regarding design for ten years already.

Todoist: Lots of Whitespace and a Clear Design. (Photo: Todoist)

My favorite feature is the option to enter appointments using natural language. For instance, when typing “Tomorrow morning at 8 am”, Todoist will enter the appointment correctly. The same thing goes for setting up returning appointments via “every Monday at 8 am”, for example.

Overall, Todoist offers a matured package that doesn’t leave much to be desired. Of course, this also makes it easy to delegate tasks and manage them in a team. Segmented projects and sub-tasks allow for much higher clarity within complex task relations. All of these features are available for free.

However, if you want to work with comments, or sort tasks via tags and filters, you need a premium account. This one comes in at a reasonable 28.99 Euro a year. You can inform yourself about the different plans here. (dpe)

Jorte

Jorte is a calendar from the land of the rising sun which should explain the playful, corny design to the western eyes. Jorte is available for smartphones under iOS, Android, and Windows, as well as a web app called Jorte Cloud. Regarding the looks, all types of bad taste are supplied, with even a cinnamon-like design being selectable.

Regarding functionality, Jorte orientates itself towards proven concepts from the analog world, such as the idea of a Filofax. The app covers notes, appointments, and tasks all at once, making it an excellent choice for the daily routine. Similarly to Google Calendar, external calendars can be integrated into Jorte, so that you always see when the next school vacation or holiday is, as long as you have publicly available calendars integrated. You can also share your calendars with a team or even publicly. There are no further options, such as e.g. delegation.

While the web app runs smoothly, the mobile apps are what will be the most fun to the fans of this calendar. Here, you get to directly add photos to appointments, while being able to choose from a large variety of different icons and fonts. If you like it…

To turn off the ads in Jorte, you have to pay 3.99 USD a year. If you are a fan of playful designs, you can get a large variety for 1.99 USD a month. If you want to tie Evernot to Jorte, that will cost 2.99 USD a month for the premium plan. (dpe)

SmartDay – Collaborative Appointment and Task Manager

SmartDay by Leftcoastlogic considers itself to be a one-stop shop for appointment and task management of real people. It wants to organize appointments, tasks, notes, and projects alike and comprehensively focuses on collaboration. Thus, comments can be written on each task and every appointment, tasks can be delegated, and projects shared. The smart thing about SmartDay is supposed to be that, if you want to, your tasks can automatically be scheduled inbetween your other appointments.

SmartDay is available for the web as mySmartDay.com. Here, it is free and mainly meant as a synchronization hub for the macOS, iOS, and Android apps. While using the web app is free, you will have to pay 9.99 EUR for the macOS, 4.99 EUR for the iOS, and 3.64 EUR for the Android version. The prices are a one-time payment, not a subscription.

Fruux – Contacts, Calendars & Tasks

Fruux, a startup from Münster in Germany, has set their goal to synchronize everything with everyone in realtime. Thus, fruux is used with the apps that we already know and love. The synchronization solution is not tied to a particular operating system; it is simply meant to work with everything. No matter if you use Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, or iOS. Share your calendar with friends, create a team address book, or work out other things you’d like to share. All information you entrust fruux with is stored on their internal cloud on European servers.

After signing up for the free basic account, you’ll be asked to synchronize your devices and application, which is done pretty quickly and easily. This is only needed once, and after that, fruux takes care of the work and keeps all connected devices synchronous. In general, contacts, calendars, and task lists can be synchronized.

After that’s done, fruux can be used on any device in any place. In the free basic version, it is possible to synchronize two devices.

If you need to synchronize more, or if you want to enjoy fruux’ advantages with your team, you have to choose one of the premium accounts.

The Pro account is affordable at 4 EUR a month. This lets you synchronize up to tem devices or applications. This way, you also get to share things with others as often as you like. (ahe)

Conclusion

Particularly in the area of cross-platform calendars and task managers, there’s a need for development. In my opinion, the best solution in our small test field was the Sunrise Calendar. Unfortunately, it has taken the way of all flesh.

The second app that sets itself apart from the masses is Any.do, which I find very exciting. No costs, and reduced to the basics – but only for task management. However, the app Cal, by the same developer, does an insufficient job at completing the package.

Google Calendar, on the other hand, could use some further development and thought. Google’s designers should take another look at it. Of course, the Google Calendar is not bad regarding functionality, no doubt.

Microsoft Outlook stands out here, as it is possible to integrate it with many services. For example, you could manage your Google Calendar with Outlook.

For appointments, I use the Google Calendar, and for tasks, I use Todoist. What are you using?